Edge n.
1. A thin, sharpened side, as of the blade of a cutting instrument.
2. The degree of sharpness of a cutting blade.
3. A penetrating, incisive quality.
4. A slight but noticeable sharpness or harshness.
5. The line of intersection of two surfaces.
6. A rim or brink.
7. The point at which something is likely to begin.
8. The area or part away from the middle; an extremity.
9. A dividing line; a border.

Monday, June 15, 2009

"The Budget FormulaThe Board of General Superintendents also voted in December 2008 to recommend a new World Evangelism Fund (WEF) allocation formula of 5.5 percent for the entire global Church of the Nazarene.

"This proposed global formula is based on current year income and no deductions. This is intended to create greater global ownership, participation, and support of the WEF—in addition to giving within the regions for special missional projects.

"In addition, the Board of General Superintendents is recommending the following formula for the U.S.:

Proposed U.S. Budget Formula

World Evangelism Fund (WEF)

5.5 %

Pensions & Benefits (P&B) Fund

2 %

Education

2.5 %

District

Determined by district

"The U.S. formula will take effect with the 2010 district assemblies. It, too, is based on current year income and no deductions.

"District budgets in the U.S., which are a vital part of the mission funding of the church, will be in addition to these categories and percentages. Each district will set its own budget, based on district missional priorities. It should be noted that the Board of General Superintendents does not have authority to determine district budgets.

"These four budgets—WEF, P&B, Education, and District—form the core of local church mission and connectional giving in the U.S.

"The previous formula, which was the subject of much discussion and review for some time, was based on complex calculations determined by the previous year's expenditures in the local church. The new formula is determined by a simple and straightforward percentage of current income.

"One objective in this change is to leave more money in the local church for ministry."

Will the Wesleyan's be far behind in moving to a "real-time" current income assessment model? It was proposed at General Conference 2000 (Memorial #348,page 83).

Why pastors should be both goal-setting fanatics and cynics

I decided to post this again because today I came across a vigorous debate in the business world about "goal setting gone wild." The post below originated as a lecture to Christian ministry students at Taylor University about the benefits and dangers of goal setting.

Original post: June 24, 2006

Part I: Four reasons why goal-setting is indispensable to pastoral ministry:

1. Without clear goals, we will often end the day having accomplished nothing important.

The youth pastor textbook Youth Ministry Management Tools includes this nugget of wisdom:

“You’re almost guaranteed trouble if you come to the office without a plan for the day. It’s amazing how time slides by and, to your dismay, you discovered you haven’t accomplished anything close to six hours’ worth of results from your day’s activities. Ministry is not about us simply putting our time in at the office” (Ginny Olson, Diane Elliot, and Mike Work, Youth Ministry Management Tools. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001. p. 73).

Without thinking through goals, we will have no criteria by which to sort through the demands upon us. We will need to instantly analyze whether we should do what someone asks us to do. These rushed decisions will produce mistakes. I often feel angry at myself for not accomplishing more in a given day.

2. Without clear goals, our fellow workers in ministry will not know which direction we are going.

Have you ever tried to “caravan” – drive with a number of different vehicles to the same location? What happens is that people have to go through red lights to keep up with each other. The lead car often has to pull over in unsafe places for the other vehicles to catch up. Safety experts say the safest approach is to give each car a set of directions and to communicate by cell phone if someone gets lost. In the same way, it is very difficult for our fellow workers to keep up with us if they don’t know where we are going. It is better to give them the map ahead of time. Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, authors of the bookFirst, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently (Simon & Schuster, 1999) which is based on 80,000 interviews, believe one of the most important things managers can do is “define the right outcomes” for the people they are working with. We don’t need to supervise every little detail someone is doing if we have described to them the final destination.

3. It makes sense to focus on a few things because we can’t do everything.

“Imagine what would happen to a commercial radio station if it tried to appeal to everyone’s taste in music. A station that alternated its format between classical, heavy metal, country, rap, reggae, and southern gospel would end up alienating everyone. No one would listen to that station!”

Pick something and do it well. Every 6 months, I need to articulate a new set of challenges to keep me motivated. You probably will too. I often list a whole bunch of ideas and then have someone help me to narrow them down to a few that I should focus on.

4. With clear goals, extraordinary things are possible.

Practice makes perfect. It really does. If you work at something steadily, you can accomplish extraordinary things.

Anders Ericsson’s work, “compiled in the The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, a 900-page academic book that was published last month [June 2006], makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated . . . ‘I think the most general claim here,’ Anders Ericsson says of his work, ‘is that a lot of people believe there are some inherent limits they were born with. But there is surprisingly little hard evidence that anyone could attain any kind of exceptional performance without spending a lot of time perfecting it’” (Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, “Freakonomics: A Star Is Made,” NY Times Magazine, May 7, 2006). See also How to Grow a Super Athlete in Play Magazine, February 2007.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a major league baseball player. I loved throwing a ball against the back of our house. It would bounce back to me and I would practice fielding it. I would even try to throw the ball to my right and left and practice diving plays. I did this thousands of times. From the time I was six, I was known as a good infielder. The more I was affirmed, the more I practiced. I ended up playing baseball through college. On the other hand, I disliked playing the piano. I would practice the 15 minutes per day that my mother required but not one minute more. Because of my minimalist approach to practice, my recitals were traumatic. I was always surprised at how badly I did. When I would sit up there on stage, I would expect to do well but I would always get lost and mess up. The point is simple: what we like to do, we do often and thus get good at it.

When I reflect on these reasons for goal-setting, I am inspired to dream a little. What do I want my life to look like in 10 years? What kind of person do I want to be? What do I hope my ministry is doing? . . .

Now, how can I break that end goal into small parts? And what can I do today to take a small step toward those goals?

Goal-setting keeps us focused, effective, inspired, and fruitful. Four cheers for fanatical goal-setting. And now . . . why we should be very suspicious of goal-setting.

Part II: Four reasons why we should be suspicious of goal-setting in pastoral ministry:

1. We are often fooling ourselves to try to set long term goals.

“Precise long range planning isn’t difficult. It’s impossible!” says Jim Plueddemann, professor of missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School at his blog. My 21 year old students often have trouble picturing what ministry they will be doing in ten years. I’m sympathetic to them because I don’t know either. I like being a pastor and being a professor. Will I be doing one or the other or both or neither in ten years? What should I be planning for?

Consider again Rick Warren’s quote that we cited above.

“Imagine what would happen to a commercial radio station if it tried to appeal to everyone’s taste in music. A station that alternated its format between classical, heavy metal, country, rap, reggae, and southern gospel would end up alienating everyone. No one would listen to that station!” (The Purpose-Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message & Mission. Zondervan, 1995, p. 157).

When a church decides to “target” ministry to married upper-middle class businessmen, often the poor (or “underresourced”), single, and disabled are subtly treated as inconvenient to the programming. A church may be better off intentionally having a more general focus.

Similarly, a student may be better off cultivating a number of ministry skills in a small church (including teaching, administration and pastoral care to a variety of age groups) as opposed to immediately specializing in a large church by being the director of small groups to single men who are between the ages of 21 and 25.

Setting goals helps us to focus and narrow down. But sometimes intentionally keeping a broad scope reflects the fact that we cannot know the long-term. Sometimes it is better to keep our options open.

2. Goals that focus on the A, B, C’s, (attendance, buildings and cash) are not God’s primary goals.

I tease my students that anyone can come up with an instant “vision” for any ministry. If they say they are interested in inner-city basketball ministry, I say: “I have a vision of (a) thousands of kids streaming into a (b) gorgeous 20-court basketball facility in downtown Chicago and (c) hundreds go to college with money donated by NBA players.”

Another student is interested in family wilderness ministry. I immediately throw out a “vision” of (a) thousands of families going to a (b) 500,000 acre park where they can whitewater raft and mountain climb and (c) there is a staff of 300 full-time trained Christian guides.

In each case, I am illustrating that anyone can articulate “a vision” in terms of attendance, buildings and cash. Jim Plueddemann says it this way: “If you have precise, predictable goals you are aiming at something of secondary importance.” There is nothing wrong with these ABC goals but we must realize that they are secondary. Pluddemann goes on to say: “The most important goal is to glorify God and help others come to Christ and progress in their pilgrimage toward Christlikeness. Such goals are imprecise.” Glorifying God and helping people grow in him are our primary goals. It is also difficult to precisely measure them.Therefore, if we have accomplished our ABC vision, but have not glorified God, we have not accomplished anything. If our goals are ABC-oriented, let’s make sure they don’t get in the way of our primary goals.

3. Written vision statements are overrated. You can still have vision without them.

Thom Rainer did a study of churches that went from “good to great.” He calls these churches “breakout churches.” He and his researchers found that formal “goal-setting” and “strategic-planning” processes did not play a role in these churches becoming more effective.

“Our research team did not hear any of the leaders of the breakout churches mention any efforts to discover vision. Yet they all have a clear and compelling vision today . . . What these thirteen churches had in common was a vision that ‘discovered’ them rather than a painful search to find out God’s specific plan . . . The Vision Intersection Profile is when the Leadership’s Passion, Community’s Needs, and Passion/Gifts of the Congregation intersect” (Thom Rainer, Breakout Churches: Discover How To Make The Leap. Zondervan, 2005. pp.112, 113, 114).

Some people are already focused and inspired. They don’t need some goal-setting mechanism to get them going. These bureaucratic processes can sometimes drain energy from the really passionate people instead of inspiring the unfocused. Writing down your personal goals or articulating a mission-statement may actually lead to a subtle feeling that the work is now over!

“We found a lack of written vision statements among the breakout churches. Conversely, we found written vision statements in more than 70% of the comparison churches. The leaders of the comparison churches seem to think that, if they could just get an idea in writing before the congregation, the people would follow. The breakout leaders discovered vision long before any statements were written, if they were ever written.” (Thom Rainer, Breakout Churches. p.115).

4. It is more important to fan your passions and riskily attempt action than to articulate your goals.

"Plans? Goals? Yes, I admit that I plan and set goals. After I’ve accomplished something, I declare it to have been my goal all along. One must keep up appearances: In our society “having goals” and “making plans” are two of the most important pretenses. Unfortunately, they are dangerous pretenses -- whichrepeatedly cause us to delay immersion in the real world of happy surprises, unhappy detours, and unexpected byways. Meanwhile, the laurels keep going to those mildly purposeful stumblers who hang out, try stuff with reckless abandon-- and occasionally bump into something big and bountiful, often barely related to the initial pursuit” (Peters, T. The Bookstore Journal. Feb. 1991 quoted by Plueddemann).

The secret of an effective life is not how to do SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely). Rather, it is closer to what Rainer discovered in studying great church leaders.

“Breakout church leaders understand the incredible brevity of life. They desire to make a difference for the glory of God in this short period. And they trust in a God of miracles for whom all things are possible” (Thom Rainer, Breakout Churches. p.127).

Conclusion:So do we set goals? Yes! We use goal-setting to keep us focused, effective, inspired, and fruitful. But goal-setting must be done with humility, depth, passion and trust.

This should be our prayer. God, show me what kind of person you want me to be in 10 years. God, show us what kind of church you want us to be in 10 years. We want to glorify you. We want to see people grow to know you more. We will risk because we trust you. What step do you want me to take today?

Update May 20, 2009

There was a lively debate about goals inThe Academy of Management PerspectivesIssue: Volume 23, Number 1 / 2009 (Not available for free online).

This group wants to be cautious about goal-setting. Here are two good quotes from their working paper.

"There is mounting causal evidence linking goal setting with a range of behaviors including a shift in risk taking (Larrick, Heath, & Wu, in press), greater unethical behavior (Schweitzer, Ordóñez, & Douma, 2004), and a narrow focus that draws attention from other important elements of the problem (Staw & Boettger, 1990)." p. 5

"As financial crises, Ponzi schemes, and the collapse of the automotive industry demonstrate, the combination of unethical behavior, risk-taking and poor judgment can be toxic. We are not implying that goal setting was the primary cause of the current crises. Instead, we suggest that we should develop and sharpen our understanding of those contextual factors that produce harmful behaviors." p. 8

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Church Planting is What Linwood Does (article online at www.wesleyan.org)

Jun. 1, 2009

"Church planting is not something we've done. It's what we do."

The words of Bill Kinnan, senior pastor at Linwood Wesleyan Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, are still true today, ten years after their first church plant.

Celebrate Church was launched in 1999 and is now one of the fastest growing in The Wesleyan Church. In March 2009, Linwood planted another church in Sioux Falls and in just two months, average attendance at The Ransom is over 100.

Phil Wiseman left his position as Linwood worship arts pastor because he felt led to find a secular job and serve as a volunteer at The Ransom.

"When Phill [Tague] and [his wife] Stephani came to Linwood with the intentions of planting a new church, I was taken back to the excitement and passion I felt when I was first called into the ministry," says Phil. "My desire to see the broken and forgotten of the world reached with the gospel resurfaced in a really cool way, and I felt this desire to go help this church plant in whatever way I can."

After praying for several weeks about going, Phil and his wife Natalie made the move. Phil works part-time in a secular job and also serves part-time at the church alongside Lead Pastor Tague (see photo).

Even in a short time, Pastor Tague has seen God move mightily in the brief time The Ransom has been established.

"We are seeing the un-churched come to Christ and the churched recommit their lives to Christ," says Pastor Tague. "God is also sending us many who come from broken backgrounds, like those who are struggling to overcome addictions. Our vision is setting captives free, and we are seeing God do this not only on the spiritual level but on the physical and emotional too."

The church's name stems from the vision God gave Phill and Stephani. As they began to pray for a name that would fit, song lyrics from a well-known worship song seemed ideal: "My chains are gone, I've been set free; my God, My Savior has ransomed me." The Tagues then knew the church would be called The Ransom.

So far at The Ransom, close to a dozen individuals have prayed and received Christ.

Linwood "gets it honest" when it comes to church planting. The church itself is a plant that began in 1966, and today average attendance totals more than 500. The church also sets aside money each year in the annual budget that goes specifically toward church planting.